Stacking Shield and Countermagic

[PhilHibbs]

Let's say I cast Countermagic 2 on myself. I then cast Shield 1, giving me Countermagic 4. Great, I can resist 4 point spells!

So I get hit with a 4 point spell. What happens? The spell is greater than the 2 point Countermagic, which on its own would be eliminated. But I have Countermagic 4, so does the whole 4 points remain? Or, is the 2 points of original Countermagic knocked down leaving the 2 from Shield?

So I get hit with a 6 point spell. What happens? The 2 points of Countermagic would disappear on its own. Shield states that the Countermagic that it grants is not eliminated by larger spells. I assume that the 2 points of actual Countermagic disappears, but the 2 points gained from Shield remain. A 5 point spell would do the same.

So I get hit with 1 point of Dismiss Magic, by someone who can discern what spells I have on me. Can they target the Shield spell on its own? The 4 points of Countermagic block the spell anyway, I think.

So they hit me with 2 points of Dismiss Magic, targeted at the Shield. The Countermagic 4 effect dissipates the Dismiss, but I assume the 2 points of spirit Countermagic also go down.

So do they need 3 points of Dismiss Magic to take down Countermagic 2 + Shield 1?

I think they can do it with 1 point of Dismiss Magic, boosted by 3MP.

There is an inconsistency between Countermagic and Shield - Countermagic says that a spell 1 point higher than the Countermagic, both spells disappear. Shield says that a spell that is 1 point stronger gets past it. I suspect that this is a genuine difference and not a mistake - Shield stays up and lets the spell get past, whereas pure Countermagic goes down and takes the spell with it.

[Joerg]

9 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Let's say I cast Countermagic 2 on myself. I then cast Shield 1, giving me Countermagic 4. Great, I can resist 4 point spells!

That depends whether you casting Shield on yourself counts as an incoming spell or not. If Countermagic affects spells cast by yourself as well, do this in this sequence and you stand there without any kind of magical protection because the shield is negated by Countermagic, but the Countermagic is eliminated as well.

If you can cast spells on yourself beneath that Countermagic, you're fine.

Otherwise, cast the shield first, then a 4-point Countermagic 2 (because the Shield's Countermagic effect doesn't get destroyed when overcome.

The spell description doesn't make an explicit exception for spells cast by yourself, so this is open to interpretation.

9 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

So I get hit with a 4 point spell. What happens? The spell is greater than the 2 point Countermagic, which on its own would be eliminated. But I have Countermagic 4, so does the whole 4 points remain? Or, is the 2 points of original Countermagic knocked down leaving the 2 from Shield?

Countermagic stacked total is 4. Even a 3-point spell would knock this down, and thus your two extra points go poof, only the shield effect remains.

9 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

So I get hit with 1 point of Dismiss Magic, by someone who can discern what spells I have on me. Can they target the Shield spell on its own? The 4 points of Countermagic block the spell anyway, I think.

No effect on you, the spell gets countered before it could target a specific spell on you.

9 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

So they hit me with 2 points of Dismiss Magic, targeted at the Shield. The Countermagic 4 effect dissipates the Dismiss, but I assume the 2 points of spirit Countermagic also go down.

So do they need 3 points of Dismiss Magic to take down Countermagic 2 + Shield 1?

I think they can do it with 1 point of Dismiss Magic, boosted by 3MP.

1 point of Dismiss boosted by 3 MP does the trick, as opposed to a 2 point Dispel Magic boosted with 4 MP. Dismiss 2 boosted with 1 MP will dismiss both Shield and Countermagic.

Shield 1 stacked with Countermagic 4 would require 3 points of Dismiss without any boost because Countermagic works only at half strength against the already doubled points of the rune spell, so six incoming points vs.effectively four points of defense.

Correct?

9 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

There is an inconsistency between Countermagic and Shield - Countermagic says that a spell 1 point higher than the Countermagic, both spells disappear. Shield says that a spell that is 1 point stronger gets past it. I suspect that this is a genuine difference and not a mistake - Shield stays up and lets the spell get past, whereas pure Countermagic goes down and takes the spell with it.

Yes. Same for Berserk.

Counter magic being only at half efficiency against rune spells is what worries me.

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

That depends whether you casting Shield on yourself counts as an incoming spell or not. If Countermagic affects spells cast by yourself as well, do this in this sequence and you stand there without any kind of magical protection because the shield is negated by Countermagic, but the Countermagic is eliminated as well.

Shield is specifically stated to be stackable with Countermagic, so clearly it is stackable with Countermagic. If Countermagic countered Shield, it would not be stackable.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Counter magic being only at half efficiency against rune spells is what worries me.

Spirit spells have always been half the strength of rune spells. A rune spell is 2 points of spirit spell. What's the problem?

[simonh]

I think I agree with all your conclusions. I generally think about this situation as though it’s a shield spell with points of countermagic stacked on top regardless of the order they were cast in. So the stack behaves generally as countermagic, except that only the countermagic part is vulnerable to getting blasted down by a high point spell.

I do think a dismiss magic cast by someone that can discern spells can target the shield separately.

Edited September 12, 2018 by simonh

[PhilHibbs]

38 minutes ago, simonh said:

 

I do think a dismiss magic cast by someone that can discern spells can target the shield separately.

So the Countermagic is protecting the person, not the spells on that person? That makes sense.

[simonh]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

So the Countermagic is protecting the person, not the spells on that person? That makes sense.

It’s tricky. Spells that aren’t specifically targeted at a specific spell always hit defensive magic first, but I think the targeting caveat in the description of dismiss magic trumps that. Both those are stated in the rules but I don’t have Access to the PDF right now.

Edited September 12, 2018 by simonh

[PhilHibbs]

You would have thought that after 35 years of playing RuneQuest, we'd have this sorted out by now. I think the reason I'm thinking hard about it now is that people are actually going to be casting Shield regularly in RQG, in a way that they really weren't in prior games.

[Psullie]

If the Dispel Magic is general then it needs to overcome the total protection - but what if you target just one, would you still need to overcome the full protection or just the target spell's strength?

[PhilHibbs]

If you accept the principle that Countermagic protects the person, not the spells on that person, then that changes things.

Quote

When cast against a general target, without specifying
any particular effect or spell, Dismiss Magic always destroys
defensive spells first, beginning with the most powerful spell
that it can affect.

So if you had Countermagic 2 and Shield 2 stacked, Dimiss Magic 1 would get rid of the Countermagic. Dismiss Magic 2 would get rid of the shield. Simple. If the target has Bladesharp 2 on their sword, you could cast Dismiss Magic 1 on the sword and ignore the Countermagic and Shield. If they had Mobility cast on them, and you could guess it from their movement rate, you could dismiss that.

What if they guess wrong? What if you guess that they have Mobility up, but actually it's a chaotic feature? What if you guess they have Bladesharp, but actually they have Boon of Kargan Tor? Could you just target "The damage enhancement spell on their sword"? I think so. I'd allow that.

Edited September 12, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Shield is specifically stated to be stackable with Countermagic, so clearly it is stackable with Countermagic. If Countermagic countered Shield, it would not be stackable.

I thought I would have to argue about it, but instead I'll just quote the rules from the Shield spell: (p.339)

Quote

If cast on a target already protected by Countermagic, the Countermagic would be Dispelled before the Shield, if possible.

So, in other words, the sequence to stack Countermagic with Shield is cast Shield first, then add Countermagic. If the shield is too weak, the Countermagic prevents it from taking effect. If it is strong enough, the pre-existing Countermagic is gone.

The other way around, the Countermagic needs to be one point stronger than twice the rune points in the Shield (not counting Extension).

 

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Spirit spells have always been half the strength of rune spells. A rune spell is 2 points of spirit spell. What's the problem?

The description of the Countermagic spell, p.259

Quote

Countermagic operates at half effectiveness against Rune magic. Hence, 2 points of Countermagic would be needed to protect against a 1-point Dismiss Magic spell.

Normally, a single point of Countermagic will stop any two points of incoming magic, then dissipate. Theoretically that's a one rune point spell. However, if a one point rune spell takes 2 points of Countermagic, then the math is off. 2 points of Countermagic stop up to 3 points of incoming magic.

Halve that... ok, in favor of the player character, that's 2 points. On an NPC, it takes 3 points, because of rounding down? And what if it is a friendly character protected thus, round up or round down? When facing Disrupts, or when given Healing?

Ok, screw halving, let's just double the rune point again. A quadrupled rune point takes 3 points of Countermagic, and 2 of them even seven points. I don't think that's intended.

So why exactly does it take two points of Countermagic to counter a single point rune spell?

[PhilHibbs]

13 minutes ago, Joerg said:

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Shield is specifically stated to be stackable with Countermagic, so clearly it is stackable with Countermagic. If Countermagic countered Shield, it would not be stackable.

I thought I would have to argue about it, but instead I'll just quote the rules from the Shield spell: (p.339)

Quote

If cast on a target already protected by Countermagic, the Countermagic would be Dispelled before the Shield, if possible.

So, in other words, the sequence to stack Countermagic with Shield is cast Shield first, then add Countermagic. If the shield is too weak, the Countermagic prevents it from taking effect. If it is strong enough, the pre-existing Countermagic is gone.

That has nothing to do with whether or not you can stack Shield on top of Countermagic. That just tells you which gets dispelled first, if someone casts dispel when you have both on you.

In other words: "If you already had Countermagic up, and you stack Shield on top of it, then when someone casts Dispel at you, the Countermagic goes away first as long as the dispel is powerful enough".

And, I think you HAVE to cast Countermagic first, THEN shield. Shield states that it is stackable with Countermagic, and describes what happens, but Countermagic is not described as being stackable with Shield.

Edited September 12, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[PhilHibbs]

18 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Quote

Countermagic operates at half effectiveness against Rune magic. Hence, 2 points of Countermagic would be needed to protect against a 1-point Dismiss Magic spell.

Normally, a single point of Countermagic will stop any two points of incoming magic, then dissipate. Theoretically that's a one rune point spell. However, if a one point rune spell takes 2 points of Countermagic, then the math is off. 2 points of Countermagic stop up to 3 points of incoming magic.

Halve that... ok, in favor of the player character, that's 2 points. On an NPC, it takes 3 points, because of rounding down? And what if it is a friendly character protected thus, round up or round down? When facing Disrupts, or when given Healing?

Erm, yeah, it's a bit of a mess, isn't it? I think that penultimate paragraph is wrong. Since Countermagic will block spells that are 1 point above, 1 point of Countermagic will block a 1-point rune spell.

18 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Ok, screw halving, let's just double the rune point again. A quadrupled rune point takes 3 points of Countermagic, and 2 of them even seven points. I don't think that's intended.

I don't understand why you are quadrupling. Countermagic 3 will defend against 2 Rune Points, Countermagic 5 will block 3, etc. The Countermagic gets taken down in both of these cases. You need Countermagic 6 to block 2 Rune Points and not be taken down by it.

Edited September 12, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Joerg]

16 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

That has nothing to do with whether or not you can stack Shield on top of Countermagic. That just tells you which gets dispelled first, if someone casts dispel when you have both on you.

If cast on a target..." - I read that "If Shield is cast on a target...", and not "if Dispel Magic is cast on a target..."

 

Quote

In other words: "If you already had Countermagic up, and you stack Shield on top of it, then when someone casts Dispel at you, the Countermagic goes away first as long as the dispel is powerful enough".

And, I think you HAVE to cast Countermagic first, THEN shield. Shield states that it is stackable with Countermagic, and describes what happens, but Countermagic is not described as being stackable with Shield.

Sort of my point: if Countermagic is not stackable with Shield, then the Shield will dissipate the Countermagic. The stackable thing goes in first, and bottom. The non-stackable thing gets crushed.

Edited September 12, 2018 by Joerg

[simonh]

It’s think by ‘if cast on a target’ it means if that target has had the spell cast on it, not ‘if you are casting the spell on a target’.

[PhilHibbs]

32 minutes ago, Joerg said:

If cast on a target..." - I read that "If Shield is cast on a target...", and not "if Dispel Magic is cast on a target..."

Yes, but both. There are two implied fragments:

Quote

If shield is cast on a target already protected by Countermagic, and then someone casts Dispel, the Countermagic would be Dispelled before the Shield, if possible.

The capital-D "Dispelled" is the clue that they are talking about someone casting Dispel, rather than the effect of one spell displacing another.

Edited September 12, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

You would have thought that after 35 years of playing RuneQuest, we'd have this sorted out by now. I think the reason I'm thinking hard about it now is that people are actually going to be casting Shield regularly in RQG, in a way that they really weren't in prior games.

We would have if we had 35 years of playing this version of RuneQuest. The problem is that most people were playing with RQ3 rules, or in some cases RQ2 rules, both of which made Rune Magic much rarer,or as you pointed out, people are going to be casting Shield (and other Rune Magic) regularly in RQ3.  So Spirirt Magic compatiblity and interaction becomes more of a thing.

[soltakss]

On 9/12/2018 at 9:02 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Let's say I cast Countermagic 2 on myself. I then cast Shield 1, giving me Countermagic 4. Great, I can resist 4 point spells!

So I get hit with a 4 point spell. What happens? The spell is greater than the 2 point Countermagic, which on its own would be eliminated. But I have Countermagic 4, so does the whole 4 points remain? Or, is the 2 points of original Countermagic knocked down leaving the 2 from Shield?

So I get hit with a 6 point spell. What happens? The 2 points of Countermagic would disappear on its own. Shield states that the Countermagic that it grants is not eliminated by larger spells. I assume that the 2 points of actual Countermagic disappears, but the 2 points gained from Shield remain. A 5 point spell would do the same.

So I get hit with 1 point of Dismiss Magic, by someone who can discern what spells I have on me. Can they target the Shield spell on its own? The 4 points of Countermagic block the spell anyway, I think.

So they hit me with 2 points of Dismiss Magic, targeted at the Shield. The Countermagic 4 effect dissipates the Dismiss, but I assume the 2 points of spirit Countermagic also go down.

So do they need 3 points of Dismiss Magic to take down Countermagic 2 + Shield 1?

I think they can do it with 1 point of Dismiss Magic, boosted by 3MP.

There is an inconsistency between Countermagic and Shield - Countermagic says that a spell 1 point higher than the Countermagic, both spells disappear. Shield says that a spell that is 1 point stronger gets past it. I suspect that this is a genuine difference and not a mistake - Shield stays up and lets the spell get past, whereas pure Countermagic goes down and takes the spell with it.

Ok, I am not going to read the RQg rules to answer this, because it probably doesn't mention how Shield and Countermagic act in those examples.

Here's how we played it in the old RQ2 days:

• If I have Shield 1 and Countermagic 2, I have an effective Countermagic 4 and can block 4 point spells.
• If I am hit by a 4 point spell, this eliminates thre Countermagic, so the Countermagic goes down, but Shield specifically does not get blown down in the same way, so you keep your Shield 1.
• If you are hit by a 6 point spell, or a 20 point spell, the same applies, the Countermagic is blown down but the Shield stays up, with its own Countermagic effect.

For Dismiss Magic:

• We played that you could target spells using Dismiss/Dispel Magic, so targeting the Shield 1 makes sense.
• However, Dismiss Magic 1 is blocked by Countermagid 4, so the Shield 1 and Countermagic 2 spells stay up.
• Dismiss Magic 2 just blows down the Countermagic and is blocked, so has no other effect
• Dismiss Magic 3 blows down the Countermagic and also Dismisses the Shield 1
• Far better to use Dismiss Magic 1 and back it with 3 Magic Points, however, how do you know they opponent has Shield 1 and Countermagic 2?
• We used to throw around big Multispelled Dispel Magic spells, I had a Dispel Magic 9 and a 9 point Power Enhancer, so tooled up I could throw 4 Dispel Magic 18s, it drained my Magic Points, but that's why I had 500 points of Stored POW! 🙂

I hadn't noticed the difference between Shield and Co9untermagic, we just used to play it as Countermagic, so it blocked the extra point, perhaps, I can't remember.